ETHICAL FAIR TRADE BLOG

I attempt to visit every home of our women every year. It's a huge task since we have 60 working members and others who are not on the roll but come often. A home visit includes walking down crowded alleys, searching for homes by the name of women in the house- something very few people know, and crowding into thier front room...if they have one.

The first time I visited Kavita's home we had a difficult time finding it. Mainly because it appeared to be a small shed behind her landlords house. It was made of pallets, tin and discarded boards and had no electricity or running water. She was much poorer than I expected- and I have been in some very poor places. ​

We sat on hand knitted rugs made from recycled sarees on the dirt floor while Kavita made coffee for us in her kitchen, which was a small stove on the floor, just feet from her bed. She only had the one room to sleep and cook in. We talked about her life and her work with The White Peacock.

Kavita is a widow. She has a daughter in college but no one else who helps her financially support her family. Her daughter has joined her in working and splitting household chores since Kavita lost her husband over 10 years ago.

Recently, Kavita had brought us a colorful design made of fabric scraps that she sourced from local tailor shops. She folded and sewed bright squares of cotton fabric to create a trivet. It was a lot of work but she did it quickly and perfectly. (Through the years several of our other members have attempted to make something similar but have not been able to reproduce her quality). Kavita's trivets sold well for several years.

In 2016 we had the idea to turn the beautiful design into a tree skirt. It was much bigger than anything she created before and she came to our weekly meeting several times, shaking her head, saying the sample still wasn't ready. When she brought the completed prototype I wasn't sure what to think. It was clearly a work of art but who would buy this? And for how much? I sent pictures to several of our corporate partners and they all said no. I didn't ask Kavita to make another one.

The first Christmas I went to the USA for holiday sale events it was the most expensive item on the table yet was the very first item sold at the very first event of the season! The customer took a picture of it under her tree and posted it on our page. All the sudden we had a wait list for 20 of our tree skirts! Only God can do that!

Kavita was overwhelmed with the order for 20 skirts but since Christmas was past we knew she had a year to work on them. Kavita now makes one tree skirt a month. Her annual income jumped from $200 a year to $1200 a year because of your purchase from our fair trade shop.

This is our passion- to offer you a high quality, unique item that blesses a family through your purchase. You have changed Kavita's life. She now thrives, not just survives, can go to the doctor when she is sick and is supporting her daughter so she can go to college and rise from the poverty she was raised in- all because of fabric scraps and a tree skirt.

Thank you for changing lives through your intentional shopping. You can buy her tree skirt here.

This tree skirt was made by Sunita and is a similar design. It is shown here under a tree in Kentucky, USA along with our saree gift bags, available online.